Again, Coverdale's posts with my notes:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coverdale
Stephanus, who had served as royal printer to French King Francis I (a Roman Catholic), had published several Latin Bibles (1527-28, 1532, 1540) in which "he followed as closely as possible the text of Jerome" (New International Dictionary of the Christian Church, p. 353). Armstrong observed that Stephanus' "primary aim in 1527 was certainly to give the best possible text of St. Jerome's version" (Robert Estienne, p. 75). MacGregor also confirmed that Stephanus “tried to follow Jerome’s text as closely as possible” (Literary History, p. 42).
NID, Armstrong (date? please) and MacGregor (date?) are all inaccurate here. Combined, they seem to assert an absurdity.
Jerome himself never even attempted to issue a critical Greek NT.
He only translated the Greek into Latin afresh for a new Latin version. So Stephen could not possibly have
"followed as closely as possible the text of Jerome" (NID), which never existed.
It would be absurd for Stephen to attempt to publish a Greek text which conforms to the Latin Vulgate, as no one in Protestant Europe was interested in that, and that was not his purpose at all. This is just Roman Catholic nonsense.
Stephen
did attempt to publish
a more accurate Greek text, and consulted more manuscripts as well and used the editions of Erasmus as a base, improving printing errors. He certainly also consulted the readings of the Latin, through the Complut. Edition, but he hardly forced the text of Erasmus to conform to the Vulgate. This is just mythology.
Quote:
Scrivener noted that Stephanus published an important edition (1538-40) of the Latin Vulgate in which he made use of seventeen manuscripts and that "this edition is practically the foundation of the Modern Vulgate" (Plain Introduction, II, p. 62).
Scrivener's statement is accurate as usual, as far as it goes, but it does not support in any way the three previous statements.
Stephen was certainly familiar with the Latin Vulgate, published it, and further improved the accuracy of its text by consulting more Latin manuscripts. This may have also coloured his opinion as to the value of the Latin translation in assisting to evaluate variant readings among the Greek manuscripts.
Quote:
Richard PorsonGentleman’s Magazine, May, 1789, p. 387; also Letters, pp. 56-57).
J. Scott Porter [1848] also maintained that “the MSS. were collated, and their readings noted, by Henry Stephens, son of Robert, then a youth of eighteen” (Principles, p. 250).
Samuel Tregelles [1860s] wrote: "Robert Stephens, ten years before, in editing the Latin Vulgate, had made pretty extensive use of MSS.; and in giving the work of Greek collation into the hands of his son Henry, then aged only eighteen, he might have had some thoughts of similarly applying criticism to the Greek text" (Account, p. 31).
Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible
(1759-1808) wrote that “Robert was aware, that by telling his readers who was the collator he might infuse a suspicion into their minds that the work was negligently performed; he therefore carefully avoided mentioning that circumstance” (
Scrivener [1870s] noted that “Robert Stephen professed to have collated the whole sixteen for his two previous editions,” but that “this part of his work is now known to be due to his son Henry [1528-1598], who in 1546 was only eighteen years old” (Introduction, II, p. 190).
"Dr." Vance [1993, self-published] acknowledged that the text of Stephanus included the “collations of his son Henry” (Brief History, p. 13).
[1875] affirmed that “the collations were made by his son Henry Stephens” (III, p. 2131).
It appears
Porson's inaccurate statement is the original source for the allegation that "ALL" the collations were by Stephen's son.
Porter appears to repeat or embellish the statement.
Smith just copies the misunderstanding.
Tregelles obviously is merely guessing. He has no new evidence or sources to reference. Trgelles' tendency to edit his predecessors is well known:
Tregelles' rewrite of Horne's Intro. Click here.
The matter is cleared up and stated more conservatively by
Scrivener, again the more careful and accurate of the historians, and Scrivener's view is apparently repeated by Vance, for what thats worth.
Ongoing Discussion of the 'Marginal Notes':
Quote:
Scrivener suggested that “the degree of accuracy attained in this collation may be estimated from the single instance of the Complutensian, a book printed in very clear type” (Introduction, II, p. 190). Scrivener then indicated that “forty-eight, or one in twelve [of Stephen’s citations of the Complutensian] are false” (p. 190, footnote 1).
Tregelles maintained that “it may be said, that as the Complutensian text is often incorrectly cited in Stephen’s margin, we may conclude that the same thing is true of the MSS which were collated; for it would be remarkable if manuscripts were examined with greater accuracy than a printed book” (Account, p. 31).
Smith’s Dictionary maintained that “while only 598 variants of the Complutensian are given, Mill calculates that 700 are omitted” (III, p. 2131). In a note,
John Eadie commented: “The margin of the New Testament of Robert Stephens, 1550, is not of great value. He did not print all the various readings which his son Henry had gathered, nor did he fully collate all the sixteen MSS” (English Bible, II, p. 214).
Samuel Newth maintained that the manuscripts used by Stephanus were “imperfectly collated” (Lectures, p. 86). Frederic Gardiner claimed that the collation in this edition “is neither complete nor accurate” (Principles, p. 5).
Richard Porson asserted that “Stephen’s margin is full of mistakes in the readings and numbers of the MSS” (Gentlemen’s Magazine, May, 1789, p. 386; Letters, p. 55). Porson noted that Stephens “has favored us with only a part of the various readings, (probably less than half) and has frequently set down a reading as from one manuscript which belonged to another” (Letters, pp. 88-89).
Charles Hudson reported that the “various readings collated by his son” . . . “are known to be given very inaccurately” (Greek and English Concordance, p. xiv).
This is all a great 20/20 hindsight view of the early collations. This is hardly unique to Stephen's edition, and all early collations have many errors. This has not affected the basic text of the Byzantine text-type or the Majority text, as consulting either Hodges/Farstad (1985) or Robinson/Pierpont (2005) will confirm.
The TR/Majority Text, while not without a few variants,
is 99% in agreement with itself in virtually all printed versions,
from 1522 to 2005.
Quote:
Are KJV-only advocates trusting 100% the collations of an eighteen year old? Has anyone ever checked and confirmed the accuracy of all his collations?
Distracting Sensationalism.
The truth is, no one cares about the marginal notes of Stephen, or any other early publisher of the Textus Receptus. Any modern printing can secure suitable and accurate collations for the text, so neither KJV-only advocates, nor anyone else needs to rely upon or even use the marginal notes of any printed edition older than 1900.
So there is no real point here. We appreciate the quotations, although dates of publication and proper temporal ordering would make dependencies clearer.
Thanks for the posts.
Nazaroo
